Category: Stevens

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Stevens President To Step Down In June

On the day of my brother’s birthday, I got a present as well. Hal is stepping down effective June 30, 2010 and in the settlement, the two parties compromised to a number of changes to Stevens’ governance procedures:

• Bylaws amendments to document the specific duties of the Board of Trustees
• A general requirement that the entire board approve important compensation and investment
decisions and review important financial information
• Rotational appointments for committee members and chairs
• Reorganization of the Executive Committee to function as an advisory group to the Board
• Improvements to the operations of Board committees in general, and specific improvements to
the operations of the Audit, Human Resources and Compensation, Nomination and Governance,
and Investment Committees
• Appointment of a non-trustee financial expert to the Audit Committee

Also a copy of the email they sent out to the Stevens Community is available below. A couple of other important links are a copy of the settlement agreement is available here and a statement from Justice Zazzali is available here.

January 15, 2010

To: The Stevens Community
From:  Lawrence T. Babbio, Jr. and Harold J. Raveche

In 2010, the Institute begins its 140th anniversary. It is well positioned to achieve ever-higher levels of greatness among the nation’s and world’s research universities. Undergraduate and graduate enrollments are at record heights, as is sponsored research. The Institute’s faculty is a dynamic group of scholars whose teaching and research have great impact on our students and on the diverse domains of expertise of each scholar.  Stevens has established two national centers of research excellence, each of which will contribute greatly to the continued ascent of the Institute through the impact of their educational and research programs, technologies that they will develop, the uses these advances will find for society, business and government and the growing collaborations with other universities and research organizations. Clusters of faculty research and thrust areas provide additional platforms for critical mass and impact.

The Institute has an exceptionally talented and dynamic undergraduate student body whose individual and collective achievements in the classroom, laboratory, extracurricular activities and service are enabling these outstanding men and women to pursue rewarding career opportunities and gain admission to leading graduate and professional schools. The 2008 Jostens Award for excellence in academics and athletics was outstanding recognition of our programs.

The excellence, relevancy and quality of implementation of the on- and off-campus graduate programs are positioning the Institute to be the technological university of choice for advanced education with business, industry and government across the nation and around the world.

The 140-year legacy of innovation, inspired by the founding Stevens family – known as “America’s First Family of Inventors” – is enhanced through the innovative educational, research and entrepreneurial programs of Technogenesis.  Through these initiatives, the Institute was recognized by national media for innovation in harvesting the benefits of research.

The Trustees, academic and administrative leadership, faculty and students have much to be proud of. Organizations with such strong momentum need time and freedom for succession planning. This is a comprehensive process involving broad discussion, input, deliberation, review and consideration of many different paths in order to identify the optimal way forward.

The Board of Trustees and the President have as their highest priority a smooth transition of leadership to ensure the continued enhancement of the Institute as one of the preeminent technological research universities.

To provide the Stevens community with the freedom and open environment to embark on this most important process, the president has decided that, after 22 years of service as the sixth president, he will not continue beyond June 30, 2010.

Lawrence Babbio, Chairman of the Board of Trustees wishes to express that: “On behalf of the Board and the entire Stevens family we would like to thank Dr. Raveche for his tireless efforts in support of the advancement of the Institute. Under his leadership, all enrollments and sponsored research have reached record levels, transformational improvements to campus life and facilities have been achieved, international programs of impact are in place, and Technogenesis has attracted national and global recognition. We look forward to working with Dr. Raveche as he completes his outstanding service, and then serves as a consultant, to prepare the Institute for the transition.”

Dr. Raveche expresses to all that: “I am privileged to have served the Institute for 22 years as the Sixth President. The Board and I look forward to working with the greater Stevens community of faculty, staff, student, alumni and external partners to ensure a smooth transition.”

Lawrence T. Babbio, Jr.                  Harold J. Raveche

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Ctrl Alt Deli: Nerdiest In America?

A friend of mine over at RIT who was “slightly embarrassed” of the name just informed me of about the geekiest convenience store name. It is called Ctrl Alt Deli (pronounced “Control Alt Deli”) which recently opened up on the campus of Rochester Institute of Technology and I have no shame in admitting that I wished we had such a name on the campus of Stevens — unfortunately we are stuck with America’s Cup, a respectable name with historical significance to our campus but not nearly creative enough.

I find it hard to believe for a student who goes to an Institute of Technology school would not find such humor and creativity amazing. There was a contest held where the name was eventually selected from an entry by a freshman computer science major.

Also for a fan like me who loves DOS, I think its awesome that each menu page with a DOS line command “C:\> dir” that allowed you to see the available files in the current and/or parent directories which in this menu case allows you to see the sandwiches or wraps available in each section.

The complete menu for the Deli is available in all of its geeky design here: CTRL ALT DELi Menu.

RIT’s Ctrl Alt Deli: Quite possibly the ‘nerdiest’ delicatessen in America?

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My Unreleased Stevens’ Legal Woes Piece

I wrote this piece the night it was announced that Stevens was being sued by the state’s Attorney General regarding financial improprieties. I don’t really know why I did not publish it that night but I was doing some house-cleaning in my writing folder and stumbled upon it. Keep in mind that this document has not changed since then so clearly more stuff has come out since I wrote it but I just wanted this out there.

Stevens Legal Woes

As a fifth year senior from the Stevens Institute of Technology, last night’s news of the legal proceedings of the misappropriation of endowment funds and excessive compensation were eye opening but should not have been very surprising to anyone within the Stevens’ community.

Stevens Institute of Technology has gone out of its way to try to ensure academic integrity on its campus with seminars and instructional exhibits on the consequences of academic dishonesty. In virtually every single classroom, there hangs up a sign stating the Stevens Honor Code with the quote, “The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.” One would think that an institution that has invested significant resources towards its Honor System would at the least be willing to open up its books in the face of these widespread allegations of improprieties.

I have a feeling Stevens doesn’t want this to be a prolonged, dragged out process as they have already highlighted in their briefing earlier for a private, confidential arbitration — which would be a huge win for the Institution but makes you wonder what they have to hide? It could just be a case of hiding bad PR for a private school that has developed international reaches over the past decade and the longer this is out in the media, the more it hurts their standing.

Anyways, here is an email that was just sent out the entire Stevens’ community regarding the legal action that was filed by the Stevens Institute of Technology Board of Trustees. Stevens definitely tries to make a very legitimate case that the Attorney General has overstepped her boundaries but is that enough justification to try and cover up their financial misappropriation of endowment funds and excessive compensation to people like President Hal Raveche.

I love how the following line appears in the first few pages describing Stevens. “It has forged relationships with foreign educational institutes which span the world, and it has become recognized as a significant partner to the United States government in the war on terrorism.” There is nothing more despicable than trying to imply a little fear of terrorism in lawsuits to try to win a case.

I really wonder how much this is political gamesmanship but you have to think this was a long time coming with the financial problems Stevens Institute of Technology has had in the past. It is a little ironic this was announced on the day that Stevens held a humanities forum on the corruption of Jersey politicians and politics.

Plenty of angry sentiments amongst the students from what I have gathered so far but I cannot say it is all one sided. Some people definitely do not like the timing of this announcement with an election coming up in about a month or so but we will see what kind of impact this really ends up having when all is said and done.

I would not expect this to be a speedy process but this certainly livens up senior year as if Hoboken did not already have enough going on.

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Lawsuit Breakdown: AG vs. Stevens

As extensive and as thorough of a breakdown between the two lawsuits between the Attorney General and Stevens Institute of Technology as you’ll find anywhere courtesy of Professor Wharton as he published earlier, hope he doesn’t mind be re-publishing his stuff here.

I haven’t read both the suits yet but I figure if Wharton has summarized it this well, there is very little chance that I’ll have more to add on it. Read this well and educate yourself.

The sources can be found at the bottom of the post.

Executive Summary

The State of NJ through the Attorney General is charging that Hal and Babbio acted outside of their responsibilities as president and Board members (Babbio being chair and Hal serving on the Board as well). The AG questions the legality of the BoT creating selective, if not secretive committees under the BoT and they’re not complying to inform the full BoT of the financial issues of the college and the compensations and benefits package packages of Hal Reveche. These benefits include an excessive salary for Hal (done under illegal practices, through a special committee and against the college’s bylaws) and low interest loans, car allowances and other benefits. In addition, that the Endowment, scholarships and other funds were misused and misapplied for unrelated finances and that the accounting books were “mismanaged.”

Synopsis:

-That Hal has expansive powers as president and voting member of the Board of Trustees (conflict of interests concerns), but this was due to the BoT agreeing to expand his powers and that he’s served as member of financially related committees for the college and that he exercised further control over subcommittees related to employee related matters, including professors (ah, somewhat unusual for a college prez btw)

-That Babbio as chairman of the BoT allowed under his watch for the BoT and its committees to engage in misconduct, including their failing to inform and disclose to the Board his and the president’s actions. Among these actions included “aggressively” expanding and modifying the college’s research activities, curricula and interfere in student body and faculty concerns. Among these, the Stevens Growth Plan which the president and the chairman “violated” donors and the Board’s spending restrictions. This was, against the “scope” of their powers.

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